When one thinks of immigration reform, one often thinks of arguments about securing the United States’ borders or dealing with the millions of illegal immigrants living in the country. These debates about immigration reform dominate the news. There are recent developments, however, in another kind of immigration reform. These developments are arguably more important to our nation’s future than anything concerning undocumented aliens.
The Senate recently introduced a bill that seeks to reform immigration by increasing the number of available H1-B visas. H1-B visas, colloquially called “high tech” visas, enable skilled foreign workers to live in the U.S. for three years, with an option to extend their stays by another three years. The new bill would allow the number of available H1-B visas to potentially increase to around 180,000. It would also increase the number of visas reserved for foreigners with STEM degrees by about 5,000.
The number of H1-B visas granted annually is currently around 65,000. That number does not come close to matching the number of demanded visas. This year, the number of applications for an H1-B visa surpassed 120,000 in only two weeks. Out of the myriad of immigration reform debates, increasing the number of H1-Bs should be one of the least controversial. What does the U.S. stand to lose by allowing highly skilled foreigners, particularly those with STEM expertise, to remain in the country for longer periods of time? Increasing the number of H1-Bs allows the U.S. to stockpile technically experienced labor, thereby allowing for more innovation and advancement in science and technology — two industries that have perhaps the most capacity to spur future economic growth. Estimates are that STEM jobs will increase by 800,000 in the next five years, well beyond the number of STEM qualified workers that U.S. universities will produce in that period. Foreign workers will therefore be needed to continue growth in those fields.
The fact that the number of applications for an H1-B totaled more than double the number of possible spots in such a short timespan indicates that foreigners want to use their skills in the U.S. rather than abroad. Many people are not simply using the U.S. education system as a stepping stone for career advancement in their home nations. We would be foolish to not capitalize on their wishes to remain here. The U.S. presents technically skilled foreigners with opportunities and resources that they may not have in their native countries. And allowing skilled foreigners to take advantage of those resources is a positive-sum game: workers are able to realize their full potentials, and U.S. industries benefit as a result.
Additionally, by keeping the same insufficient number of H1-Bs, the U.S. would be doing more than just passing up beneficial labor. A nontrivial percentage of graduate students in STEM fields are foreign. In fact, a majority of the engineering Ph.D. students attending U.S. schools is foreign-born. For STEM fields overall, around 40 percent of graduate students are foreigners. And those percentages are constantly on the rise. Yet with the current number of H1-Bs, many soon-to-graduate foreign students will not be able to remain in the U.S., even if they want to. The U.S. is therefore using much of its higher-education system to benefit other nations when it could be using much more of the intellectual capital American schools generate. We are squandering talent that we could easily retain. At public universities, the lack of H1-Bs should be especially frustrating. While it is commendable that those public schools can result in the embetterment of foreign nations, American tax dollars are going toward educating foreign students who may contribute only minimally to the U.S. before they take their skills abroad.
Critics say that if the bill is passed, businesses will pay skilled foreign workers less than their American counterparts, thus keeping domestic workers out of technical industries even though they may be equally qualified. That is a valid point. If the number of H1-Bs increases, then so should wages for foreign workers. Foreign workers, if they are to remain in the U.S. and benefit American businesses, do not deserve to have their compensation undercut. Equal wages will allow for more even competition between domestic and foreign workers.
Allowing more technically skilled workers to remain here, however, does not mean that the U.S. should not continually seek to improve on the number of American highly skilled and STEM workers it is producing. If the percentage of foreign workers and graduate students allowed to remain in the U.S. increases, more industries will be hiring foreign labor to the exclusion of domestic workers. U.S. middle and high schools, then, would still be obligated to emphasize the importance of math and science in schools so that enough students would be likely to enter STEM fields to balance out the influx of skilled foreign workers. Though more technically skilled foreign workers deserve to stay in the U.S., American students should also seek to increase their numbers in STEM programs.
Alex Yahanda is a senior associate editor for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at a.yahanda@cavalierdaily.com.
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